(Photo courtesy of IFJ)

4 March 2010

http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-joins-london-call-on-president-arroyo-to-stamp-out-impunity-in-the-philippines

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Union of Journalists in Great Britain and Ireland (NUJ), joined the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines and Amnesty International at a rally yesterday at the Human Rights Action Centre in London to mark 100 days since the massacre of 23 November 2009, which left 57 people dead, including 32 journalists in the southern province of Maguindanao in the Philippines.

“The Arroyo government is responsible for allowing a culture of impunity to grow over the past decade that created the conditions in which the Ampatuan Town massacre could take place,” said Jim Boumelha, IFJ President.

The IFJ is particularly critical of the decision to promote General Alfred Cayton to deputy commander of the Philippine army within weeks of him refusing a military escort for the convoy that was subsequently massacred. Victims’ families have since launched a civil action against General Cayton

“This promotion not only rewards a fatal act of gross negligence, but also makes clear the government’s determination not to investigate the role and responsibility of the military in this massacre,” added Boumelha.

The IFJ is also critical of President Arroyo’s vaguely-worded Executive Order 546 issued in 2006 which allowed the use of neighbourhood-watch type armed “force multipliers,” or Civilian Volunteer Organisations, in counterinsurgency operations. These, in practice, effectively supported paramilitary groups and legalised private armies of politicians and other local strongmen.

The IFJ links the use of private armies to the growing number of extrajudicial killings and disappearances for which nobody has ever been brought to justice. Prior to this massacre, some 104 journalists had met violent deaths since 1984. The murder of the 32 journalists and media workers, along with 25 other victims, is the single worst atrocity against the media and makes the Philippines the most dangerous country for journalists outside Iraq.

The IFJ joins the NUJ UK and the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines in issuing a statement urging the Government of the Philippines to act on its commitment under International Obligations and Actions, including the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 2006 UN Security Council resolution 1738 that obliges governments to protect journalists in conflict zones.

In particular, the group is demanding that President Arroyo revokes Executive Order 546 which allows militias to operate. With regard to the massacre itself, that Government :

- gives full support to the families of the victims – financial, medical and legal;
investigates the inaction and alleged collusion of the military structures and commands prior to the massacre;
- gives sufficient resources and independence to prosecutors and the judiciary to guarantee a speedy and effective investigations , trial and crucially guarantees the safety and protection of all witnesses to the massacre and ;
- ensures a safe environment in which media across the country can report on the May 10th election.

For more information, please call the IFJ at +32 2 235 2207

The IFJ represents more than 600.000 journalists in 125 countries

By Ronalyn V. Olea, http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/02/09/morong-43-cry-torture-satur-denounces-grandslam-day-for-impunity/2/

9 February 2010

MANILA — The 43 health workers who were arrested Saturday morning in Morong, Rizal province have been subjected to physical and psychological torture, colleagues said.

After three days, relatives and colleagues were finally able to visit the 43 detainees in Camp Capinpin, in Tanay, Rizal, through the intervention of Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairperson Leila de Lima, who earlier denounced the military for refusing access to those detained.

The military and the police arrested the 43 health workers, including doctors, nurses and midwives on Saturday morning. Colleagues and relatives said the 43 were holding a health training and seminar but the military insisted that they were NPA members and were caught in the act of making explosives. On Tuesday, the military announced that several of those arrested had pending cases in courts and that at least one of them allegedly took part in a failed plot to assassinated then general and now congressman Jovito Palparan.

Some of the relatives were not able to see their loved ones, though. “The security was tight. Upon entry, we were subjected to body search twice. The soldiers also took photographs and videos of us,” said Roneo Clamor, deputy secretary-general of Karapatan and husband of Merry, a medical doctor who was among those detained. Clamor told Bulatlat that the health workers were arrested “at gun point, they were blindfolded, handcuffed and made to kneel down.”

In fact, the detainees were blindfolded for 36 hours, said Dr. Geneve Rivera, secretary-general of the Health Alliance for Democracy (Head). “Their blindfolds were only removed at 8 a.m. today, before CHR Chair de Lima was allowed entry to the camp,” Clamor said on Monday.

Clamor said de Lima talked to the military officers and stayed at the camp for more than three hours. “She made sure that we would be allowed to see our loved ones.”

In the Facebook page “Release Thehealthworkers,” de Lima is quoted as saying: “They are continuously handcuffed and blindfolded… they are not allowed to sleep, somebody else feeds food into their mouths, even when they urinate — somebody else pulls down their underwear.”

On Sunday, the CHR-National Capital Region (NCR) team was prevented from entering the camp. They waited at Camp Capinpin from 11 a.m. until the afternoon, to no avail. Lieutenant Colonel Noel Detoyato, civil-military operations chief of the brigade, defended the refusal to allow entry, saying it was caused by concerns over a possible “jailbreak.”

Bulatlat tried to reach de Lima on her mobile phone but got no answer.

Torture

Clamor said all of the detainees were subjected to relentless interrogation and were deprived of sleep. “They were made to sit the whole time,” he said. “They [interrogators] played good cop and bad cop. They asked all the personal details and some tried to force the detainees to admit that they are NPA [New People's Army] members.” On Monday, military officials said some of those arrested had confessed to being communist guerrillas and that they were willing to testify in court against the others.

Clamor said Dr. Alex Montes of the Community Medicine Development Foundation (Commed) was forced to admit that he is an NPA guerrilla. The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been waging a Maoist revolution for more than four decades.

Rivera told Bulatlat that the detainees are heavily guarded, with a military officer — a lieutenant colonel as the lowest ranking officer — assigned to each of them. “They are being guarded even to the comfort rooms,” Rivera said. The 43 have been separated in different detention cells, added Rivera.

At 9:15 pm last night, the arrested health workers were subjected to inquest proceedings by a certain Romeo Samson of the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to Clamor. “Again, no counsel for the victims was present during the proceedings.”

“The military said they will file charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives. They issued a defective warrant and planted evidence against the health workers,” said Clamor.

Defective Warrant

Lawyer Julius Garcia Matibag, one of the legal counsels, pointed out the illegality and unconstitutionality of the warrant. During the raid, the owner of the farmhouse, Dr. Melecia Velmonte, protested the illegal search and arrests; she was ignored. Upon the intervention of Velmonte’s son, the soldiers presented a search warrant against a certain Mario Condes. “Condes is neither a resident of the house nor known to the Velmontes and to the participants of the training,” Matibag said.

He said the warrant does not describe with particularity the place to be searchef as it only indicates the address as “Bgy. Maybangcal, Morong, Rizal.” Section 2, Article III of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that a search warrant or a warrant of arrest must specify the place to be searched or the persons or things to be seized.

Matibag also said the arresting team violated Section 8, Rule 126 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure when they searched the premises without the presence of the owner of the house or witnesses. According to the rules, no search shall be made except with the presence of the lawful occupant or any member of the family or in the absence of the latter, two witnesses of sufficient age and discretion residing in the same locality.

After the raid, the military alleged they found bomb-making materials, guns, and even a claymore mine under the beds of the health workers.

Legal Moves

Matibag said they will file a petition for habeas corpus Tuesday morning at the Supreme Court. Clamor said the detainees are determined to file counter charges against their captors.

In a separate statement, the party list group Bayan Muna said that it will file the necessary criminal and administrative charges against those who led the raid.

The military presented as evidence supposed Bayan Muna election paraphernalia. “This is another attempt to harass Bayan Muna and feed government propaganda to link the organization with the New People’s Army. It is nothing more than a partisan political act by the Arroyo government aimed at ensuring the electoral defeat of Bayan Muna, a prohibited act under election laws,” the group said.

It also said the authorities violated the Anti-Torture Act, which provides under Section 4 (b) for the imprisonment of military and police elements who “prohibit the victims from communicating with members of his/her family” and who blindfold those in their custody.

Disservice to the Poor

Meanwhile, the Council for Health and Development (CHD) criticized the Arroyo government for “terrorizing health professionals who have chosen to stay to serve the country.”

The CHD is the national organization of more than 50 community-based health programs in the entire Philippines. Its staff members were among those arrested.

Dr. Eleanor Jara, CHD executive director, lamented that the abducted health professionals and CHWs are among those that serve far-flung villages where government personnel and services are lacking or are simply absent. “Because of their passion and dedication to serve their fellow Filipinos, these health professionals and CHWs brave difficult work environments and meager salaries just so they could be of service where they are most needed,” Jara added.

“Instead of supporting and lauding their efforts and sacrifices, what does Mrs. Arroyo’s government do? Her military and police abduct these health professionals and CHWs and violate their rights. In effect, the delivery of health services in the poorest communities is derailed,” Jara said.

The ratio of doctor to patient in the Philippines is pegged by the Department of Health at 1:30,000.

“The military has done it again, this condemnable incident adds up to the long list of human-rights violation against health workers and community-based health practitioners,” Jara said.

Martial Law, Counter-Insurgency

In a press conference on Monday afternoon, Makabayan senatorial bet Satur Ocampo called the incident “a classic throwback to the martial law era.”

“This governmment already has a lot to answer for attacking the human rights of the Filipino people… Now we have the AFP abducting and harassing health professionals and personnel,” Ocampo said, adding “It’s a grandslam day for impunity.”

Clamor, of Karapatan, said the incident was part of the implementation of the Oplan Bantay Laya II, the counter-insurgency program of the Arroyo government. “Once again, this proves that the Arroyo government has not adhered to [UN Special Rapporteur Philip] Alston’s recommendations. Even with the abolition of the IALAG [Inter-Agency Legal Action Group], the filing of trumped-up charges continues.”

Alston, who visited the country in February 2007, linked the extrajudicial killings and other rights abuses to the counter-insurgency program of the Arroyo government. One of his recommendations is the abolition of IALAG, a group created by virtue of Arroyo’s executive order and tasked to build up cases against so-called enemies of the state. (Bulatlat.com)

]]> http://www.chrp.org.uk/2009/135/feed/ 0 http://www.chrp.org.uk/2009/%e2%80%98desaparecidos%e2%80%99-a-family%e2%80%99s-search-continues/ http://www.chrp.org.uk/2009/%e2%80%98desaparecidos%e2%80%99-a-family%e2%80%99s-search-continues/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:07:58 +0000 admin http://www.chrp.org.uk/?p=132 Business Mirror, By Stella Gonzales, http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/opinion/16438-desaparecidos-a-familys-search-continues.html

23 September 2009

MANILA—In September 2007 the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance sent a letter to the Philippine government urging it to investigate the case of Jonas Burgos, a 37-year-old agriculturist who was abducted five months earlier in a crowded mall in Quezon City, one of the major cities comprising the metropolitan area in the national capital region.

Two years have passed but Jonas’s family and friends are still looking for him.

According to Jonas’s mother, Edita, the victim’s four-year-old daughter has not stopped expecting to see her missing father one of these days. Edita recounts a time when the girl saw the silhouette of a male visitor in their house. Thinking that it was her father, the girl rushed to the man and called out “Tati”—her term of endearment for him, which is coined from “daddy” and the Filipino word “tatay” (father).

“When she saw that it wasn’t her father, she said ‘ay hindi pala’ [oh, it’s not him] and went back to what she was doing,” Edita told Inter Press Service in an interview on the very same day, September 21, human-rights groups were marking the 37th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, which spawned massive human rights abuses, by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The girl—whose name is being withheld in keeping with Philippine laws protecting the right to privacy of children—may only have scant memories of her father because she was still very young when he went missing. But perhaps because she sees his pictures in their house, the girl seems to have a special bond with men of her father’s age and body build, Edita said. She said her granddaughter has been told in very simple language that her father ”was taken by bad men.”

Jonas, who had dedicated himself to teaching farmers natural farming techniques, was one of the 30 desaparecidos (disappeared) documented by the human-rights group Karapatan (Rights) in 2007, and one of the 202 enforced disappearances recorded from 2001 to March this year û during the administration of President Arroyo, whose human- rights record is said to have surpassed that of Marcos.

Several months after Jonas went missing, the license plate of the vehicle used in his abduction was traced to another car impounded in a military camp. It was a crucial lead in the search for the son of a press-freedom fighter and bolstered suspicions that he was abducted by military agents. The military, however, said the license plate was apparently stolen from the camp.

Jovito Palparan, the military general who headed the Army division where the vehicle used in Jonas’s abduction had been traced, is now a congressman or member of the House of Representatives in the country’s bicameral legislature. He has been repeatedly blamed for the numerous cases of extrajudicial killings in the regions where he was assigned.

An Army general has claimed that Burgos—who, witnesses said, shouted “I am only an activist” on the day he was seized by armed men—was a member of the New People’s Army, the revolutionary arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The official would not say whether  the communist rebels who abducted him.

On the legal front, the Court of Appeals ruled in 2008 on the petition filed by Jonas’s family, but it failed to resolve some important issues, including the alleged involvement of the military in the disappearance. This prompted the family to file another case, this time before the Supreme Court, where the case has been pending for more than a year now.

Edita has been a constant figure in human-rights rallies in the Philippines and has been speaking in various forums and conferences here and abroad to pressure the Philippine government into producing her son. She is leaving for Europe in October to speak before several audiences, part of her efforts to keep the public aware of the case of her son and those of other victims of enforced disappearances.

“These are small efforts just so people will not forget that Jonas is missing,” Edita said.

She has also been holding private meetings with politicians who have indicated interest in running in the May 2010 elections, when Filipinos voters will choose a new set of leaders, including president, vice president and legislators.

“I visit them and talk to them privately. I ask them if they will take up the cause of human rights if they are elected,” Edita said.

“Some, however, have told me that human rights will surely be one of their concerns when they are elected. And I told them that I will help them not just by voting for them but also by asking my friends to vote for them,” Edita said.

Edita strongly believes that the matter of enforced disappearances will end if there is political will, which is why she wants to support politicians who are committed to human rights. She said she would also campaign against those who have spotted human-rights record.

Edita is looking forward to the day when Arroyo, who has been blamed for the surge in human-rights violations in the country, leaves the presidency. “I think I will find my son only after Arroyo leaves,” Edita said.

She said that even those who personally know her family or her late husband—esteemed newspaper publisher Jose Burgos Jr.—are covering up Jonas’s disappearance “because of the message of Arroyo’s leadership to everybody down the line”—that their lives, their salaries would be at stake if they helped in Jonas’s case.

“I want [us to elect] honest people who will help end disappearances. If we do not put people there [in public office] who will be sincere in dismantling all the institutions used to abduct people, these disappearances will not end,” Edita said.

In her search for her missing son, Edita had been asked on several instances to identify the body of a heavily tortured male near Jonas’s age that was dumped in some province. She said she always has mixed emotions. “On the way to the site, I would keep praying that it isn’t Jonas. But after I am able to confirm that it’s not him, I could not rejoice because I know that there’s a mother out there somewhere searching for her son,” she said.

And on the few occasions when a ”disappeared” person is “released” by his or her captors and surfaces in a jail, Edita rejoices with other members of human-rights organizations. “You cannot imagine our happiness. There is much crying and shouting. At least one person was saved. Even if this person is in jail for some supposed crime, what’s important is that he is alive,” she said. It “as if it is my child who was released,” she said.

More than two years after Jonas’s abduction, Edita continues to believe that he is still alive—tortured, in solitary captivity, but alive. “I don’t want to think that he is dead. Our search is made easier when I think that I will find him alive,” she said.  Yet even if Jonas were already dead, Edita would still not stop searching for him, and neither would her search for justice. “There can only be closure after justice has been served,” she said.

“If he is dead, I am sure he is in heaven. If he is alive, I want him to know that all through these years, we did not give up the search for him.”

Dear President Arroyo,

Your visit to London aims to discuss economic development in the Philippines. We do not believe that there can be any meaningful economic progress if the human rights of Filipino citizens are violated.

Madame President, you are the head of a state which stands accused of perpetrating and rewarding political killings, disappearances, torture, and the violation of basic human rights. This situation has been investigated and documented by numerous United Nations bodies as well as human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches.

In November 2007 the report of Philip Alston the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions concluded that in the Philippines: “the Armed Forces have followed a deliberate strategy of hunting down the leaders of leftist organisations” and have  “eliminated civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade unionists and land reform advocates”. In May 2009 the United Nations Committee on Torture (UNCAT) reported the “routine and widespread use of torture” in the Philippines and a “climate of impunity”. In September 2009 a high level ILO Mission will visit the Philippines in response to “serious allegations of the murder of trade unionists, death threats, arrests of trade union leaders …and the militarization of workplaces in export processing zones and special economic zones.”

For the first half of 2009, the Philippines human rights organization Karapatan has documented 34 victims of extrajudicial killings, bringing the total recorded for the period from 21 January 2001 to 30 June 2009, to 1,032. In the same period the number of enforced disappearances came to 202. Only this week Amnesty International released a further public statement raising concerns about the safety of human rights defenders and calling on the Government to stand by its publicly stated commitment to the UN in 2008 not just to decrease political killings and enforced disappearances, but also to effectively implement reform in its witness protection program.

Madame President, we call on you to stop the political killings and to end the impunity of the armed forces in perpetrating murder, abduction and torture against the people of the Philippines.

 
Yours sincerely,
Canon Barry Naylor
President, Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines

By RONALYN V. OLEA, Bulatlat.com – http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/09/04/in-philippines-human-rights-advocates-live-dangerously/

4 September 2009

MANILA — In his seven years of involvement in human-rights advocacy, Fred Caña knows very well the risks it entails in a country where impunity prevails.

Caña is the secretary-general of Karapatan-Negros. Like any other human-rights worker, Caña’s tasks include documenting cases of human-rights violations, helping out the victims, survivors and their families seek justice and demanding accountability from perpetrators. For all these, the usual suspects for human-rights abuses have subjected Caña to surveillance, red baiting and different forms of harassment.

“I have long accepted the possibility of getting killed because of this work,” he told Bulatlat, pointing out that many of his colleagues in Karapatan have been victims of extrajudicial killings the past several years.

Caña is no different from other human-rights workers in the field. Karapatan’s newly elected national secretary-general Lovella de Castro told Bulatlat that there has been a systematic attack on Karapatan as an organization and on its individual leaders and volunteers especially in the wake of the heightened campaign against state fascism.

Although based in Bacolod City, Caña would usually go to communities where violations are committed. During the campaign against intensified military operations in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental, soldiers of the 11th Infantry Battalion (IB) of the Philippine Army burned down an effigy of Caña, declaring him as persona non grata.

The soldiers had been encamping inside the barangay (village) halls of Guihulngan, sowing terror on the local residents. In Barangay Linantuyan, the soldiers have set up the so-called Barangay Defense System (BDS), “mobilizing” the residents against the insurgents.

In one of the rallies organized by the local peasant group Kaugmaon in July 2008, soldiers from the 11th IB harassed the protesters and publicly labeled Caña as a spokesman of the New People’s Army (NPA). The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), has been waging a Maoist revolution for four decades now.

It has also been a habit of the military to label Caña as a communist in a military-run radio program in Bacolod City.

Caña knows that he has been under surveillance but still, he never expected the military to visit his mother in their hometown in Sipalay, 180 kilometers from Bacolod City. The soldiers asked for his whereabouts and told his mother: “Your son is in the hills fighting with the NPA.”

There were moments when Caña thought he would be killed. Sometime in December 2006, Caña and his wife Tess were riding a tricycle on their way home when a man took the back seat and ominously showed his 45-caliber pistol to the couple. At another time, when the couple was buying rice from a store, a man sat in front of Caña and showed him his gun. Another buyer came, prompting the armed man to leave the store.

Two weeks after the incident, the then commander of the 61st IB, Colonel Leodivic Guinid, approached Caña and invited him for a “small talk.” Caña quoted Guinid as telling him: “Fred, you are still young. Why don’t you leave your work and start anew?” Caña, who is 44 years old, said Guinid went on to lecture him against communism.

Even Lawyers Are Harassed

Even human-rights lawyers are not spared from attacks. Kathrina Castillo, former secretary-general of Katungod-Sinirangang Bisaya, a regional human-rights alliance in Eastern Visayas, received unusual invitations from the military, particularly from the 8th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army based in Catbalogan, Samar.

On Feb. 9, Castillo received an invitation from Lt. Col. Roldan A. Radaza of the 8th ID to be their guest of honor and speaker in the military’s awarding ceremony the following week. Castillo did not attend but sent an open letter to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. In her letter, Castillo cited numerous cases of human-rights violations in the region perpetrated by state security forces, including three massacres.

In his response, Maj. Gen. Arthur Tabaquero claimed that Castillo has become the “unwitting victim” of the CPP/NPA’s deception and lies.

“Based on CPP/NPA documents in our possession, it is stated that a major part of their strategy is to mobilize their mass base supporters to file cases against the military whether the case is factual, fictitious or imaginary in order to derail the conduct of military tactical and civil-military operations in guerilla zones and bases,” Tabaquero said.

Through the military-run local radio program in Catbalogan, Col. Armand Rico, spokesman of the 8th ID, repeatedly labeled Castillo as the lawyer of the NPA and of National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas spokesman Fr. Santiago Salas.

According to the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) and Counsels for the Defense of Liberties (Codal), from 2001 to 2008, there were 15 lawyers and two lawyers’ groups who have either been told that they are included in the military’s order of battle (OB) or have been openly accused of being communist rebels. Two of the 15 lawyers have already been killed — Norman Bocar, who was gunned down on Sept. 1, 2005, in Borongan, Eastern Samar, and Juvy Magsino, shot dead on Feb. 13, 2004 in Naujan, Mindoro Oriental.

Happens Nationwide

The attacks on Karapatan and its volunteers take on many forms. In fact, 34 Karapatan members have already been killed from 2001 to present.

Harassments of fact-finding missions are usual. Karapatan’s de Castro said soldiers would block their teams, terrorize the victims or deliberately conceal evidence of rights abuses. In some cases, Karapatan volunteers are denied access to communities where heavy military operations are ongoing, preventing them from documenting cases of violations.

Human-rights workers, too, have been slapped with fabricated criminal charges, such as those in Cebu, Southern Tagalog, Negros and Southern Mindanao Region.

“The military has been trying to discredit the organization and our members and has been harassing us in the field,” de Castro told Bulatlat.

Offices of Karapatan chapters in Pampanga, Tarlac, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera were raided in separate incidents, de Castro said.

Stronger

Amid all these, de Castro said Karapatan has come out stronger. She said that Karapatan chapters in the provinces persevered in the campaign for human rights.

Security precautions are observed as a way of coping with the dangers of their work. Flor Chantal Eco, secretary-general of Katungod-SB, said that to avoid surveillance, they refrain from having fixed patterns and fixed points in their daily activities.

In Central Visayas, human-rights teams are deployed in militarized areas to document cases of violations. “I call them the ‘suicide force’ because they are willing to take on the risks that go with human rights work,” de Castro said.

De Castro believes that the formation of Hustisya!, an organization of families of victims of extrajudicial killings, is the biggest gain of Karapatan as far as advocacy is concerned. “The consolidation of victims is an added voice calling for justice,” she said.

For Caña, offense is the best defense. “We assert our rights and rely on mass actions and alliance work.” (Bulatlat.com)

For full text of Shattered Lives AI report, click here

“We inherited an age-old conflict in Mindanao, exacerbated by a politically popular but near-sighted
policy of massive retaliation. This only provoked the other side to continue the war.”
- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address, 27 July 2009

REPORT SUMMARY
Yet another round of fighting between the Philippine government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) has ended on 29 July 2009. The 2008-2009 hostilities, which displaced more than 750,000 persons
in total and led to numerous human rights abuses, officially ended with an agreement to resume peace
negotiations. One year after renewed violence between government security forces and armed groups,
Mindanao is finally beginning to see a possible end to the unrest and uncertainty— and perhaps even an end to
the 40-year armed conflict.

Their lives shattered by the armed conflict, hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Mindanao region of
southern Philippines faced the risk of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests,
displacement and burning and destruction of their homes at the hands of the Philippine armed forces, MILF
fighters, and local militias. With no means of making a living, the people have become dependent on aid.

In May 2009 the Mindanao conflict was identified as having the highest number of new internally displaced
persons worldwide1 and having “the most neglected displacement situation” in 2008.

Many displaced people, as of the end of July 2009, have still been unable to go back to their villages. They
live in fear and uncertainty in overcrowded camps, with their relatives, or in makeshift shelters on roadsides.
Unable to tend to their farms, they have become dependent on food rations and other aid. For many large
families the food rations are not enough, and family members have been forced to go back to their villages to
forage for food or something to sell, risking their lives in the process. In June 2009, the Philippine government
discouraged aid agencies from giving large quantities of food to displaced persons, in an effort to prevent food
from being diverted to the hands of the MILF or sold to traders.

With a ceasefire now in place, both parties to the conflict must, as a matter of urgency, ensure the safe return
to their homes of the more than 240,000 internally displaced persons.4 They should also cooperate in
facilitating a comprehensive, impartial and thorough investigation into all allegations of grave human rights
abuses and violations of international humanitarian law during the recently concluded hostilities. It is vital that
those whose lives have been shattered by the abuses achieve justice promptly as armed conflicts, often borne
out of perceived injustices, feed on unresolved grievances that arose from a history of conflict and many years
of failure to hold to account perpetrators of grave human rights abuses.

Fighting escalated in August 2008, after the Philippine Supreme Court delayed formally signing the
“Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain”, a document which would later increase the autonomous
territory of Muslim Mindanao. In response, MILF fighters launched attacks against civilians, and fighting
between the security forces and the MILF intensified. In October 2008, the Supreme Court ruled the
Memorandum unconstitutional. Fighting continued as the government forces conducted military operations in
an effort to pursue MILF commanders who have led the attacks.

The armed conflict in Central Mindanao, which was officially between the Philippine government and the MILF,
was further aggravated by violent acts by other armed groups, privately-armed militias and powerful feuding clans.

The Philippine government declared a Suspension of Military Operations and the MILF declared a Suspension
of Military Activities as of 23 and 24 July 2009, respectively. At the same time the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) stated that the pursuit of MILF commanders Ameril Umbra Kato, Abdullah Macapaar and Ali
Pangalian and their fighters continues, and the military will remain involved in the operations, in support of the
Philippine National Police (PNP), who will, in case of their capture, serve them their warrants of arrest for
criminal acts such as murder, arson and robbery. Amnesty International calls on the Philippine government to
ensure that such joint police-military pursuit operations do no result in further human rights violations in
Central Mindanao5 and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

In the context of the armed conflict, Amnesty International and other human rights monitors and humanitarian
workers have reported on cases of arbitrary arrests, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, enforced disappearances, political killings, house destruction as well as diversion and prevention
of access to aid.

In March 2009 Amnesty International visited Mindanao, including the cities of Davao, Cotabato and Iligan, and
the provinces of North Cotabato and Maguindanao, to obtain updated first-hand information about the human
rights situation there. The organization gathered reports from local human rights monitors, humanitarian
workers, the military, the MILF, the Philippine Catholic Church, local and international non-governmental
organizations and the media. This report is a follow-up to “Shattered Peace in Mindanao: The Human Cost of
Conflict in the Philippines” (AI Index: ASA 35/008/2008) published by Amnesty International in October
2008.

This report focuses on the situation of internally displaced persons and human rights abuses and violations of
international humanitarian law in the context of the armed conflict in Maguindanao province, which was the
stronghold of the MILF and one of the centres of the armed conflict for most of its duration. Amnesty
International interviewed victims, their families and witnesses as well as members of civil society in the
province. Some of the cases raised in this report were taken from interviews and documentation by
independent humanitarian workers and community human rights monitors.

Amnesty International does not take sides in armed conflicts generally, including conflict between the
Philippine government and the MILF. In the context of armed conflict, the organization concentrates on
documenting and campaigning against human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law,
no matter who commits them.

Amnesty International’s concerns
Where armed conflict is prolonged, increased suffering and hardship invariably follow. Armed conflicts have,
more often than not, been the breeding ground for mass violations of human rights.

All parties to an armed conflict are obliged to comply with international humanitarian law, and in particular
Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prohibits any attacks on persons “taking no active
part in the hostilities,” and the Second Optional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions which contains similar
provisions. Moreover, international human rights law applies in war just as in peace time. Amnesty
International calls upon the parties, most notably the Philippine government and the MILF, to explicitly show
commitment to putting an immediate and unconditional end to all violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law, including but not limited to, attacks targeting civilians, indiscriminate attacks, burning and
destruction of civilian properties, arbitrary arrests, torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, enforced disappearances and unlawful killings, including but not limited to political killings.

The Philippine government must ensure the protection of civilians affected by the conflict, particularly
displaced persons. It must also ensure that displaced families are provided with sufficient food, access to
potable water and free medical treatment.

The Philippine government and the MILF must fully cooperate to facilitate prompt, impartial and thorough
investigations into allegations of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law.
Reports of the investigations should be made public. Perpetrators, irrespective of rank, must be brought to
justice in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness, and victims must be ensured reparations.
Conclusions and Recommendations

The failure of both the Philippine military and the MILF to ensure that their forces comply with international
law during the 2008 – 2009 conflict has resulted in human rights violations and abuses and violations of
international humanitarian law. The lack of a neutral human rights monitor respected by both parties to the
conflict has meant that effective investigations and bringing the perpetrators to justice has not occurred.

The presence of armed groups and privately armed militias, and localised attacks between feuding clans, has
aggravated the already volatile and complex situation. At the centre of the armed conflict are the lives of the
hundreds and thousands of civilians who have been displaced. Dependent on aid, with no sure prospects of
livelihood, no safe communities or sometimes even standing homes to go back to, theirs is an uncertain future.
The recent suspension of hostilities provides a much-awaited respite for the conflict-affected population. The
re-opening of the peace talks provides the Philippine government and the MILF with an important opportunity
to put human rights at the heart of their new round of negotiations. Just like other armed conflicts in the
world, the Mindanao armed conflict has fed on unresolved grievances that arose from a history of conflict.

These grievances are often about grave human rights abuses, and historically, perpetrators of these abuses have
not been held to account.

Amnesty International makes the following recommendations to the Philippine government, the MILF and the
international community.

Recommendations
To the Philippine authorities
1. The government security forces, comprising the AFP and government-armed paramilitaries, such as the CAFGU and
CVO, must immediately cease all violations of human rights and take all measures necessary to ensure they are not
repeated in the future.
2. The Philippine government, especially the Department of National Defence with regard to members of the
government security forces, should initiate prompt, impartial and thorough investigations into reports of violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law.
*Witnesses and families of the victims should be protected from violence, threats or any other intimidation and
those under investigation should be suspended from any position where they can exert power or influence over them.
*Individuals identified by the investigation as responsible, including those with command responsibility
irrespective of rank, must be brought to justice in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness. An
order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification for committing serious human
rights violations or violations of international humanitarian law.
*The reports of these investigations should be made public.
*Victims must be ensured reparations in accordance with international standards. Such reparation must include
restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.
3. The Armed Forces of the Philippines must demonstrate its commitment to human rights, by providing its human
rights office with the resources needed to effectively investigate all cases of violations of international humanitarian
law and human rights violations perpetrated by the government security forces, including but not limited to,
destruction of civilian houses and property, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, unlawful killings including
political killings, and torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
*The AFP human rights office must be given the mandate and sufficient capacity to conduct the detailed and
impartial investigations itself, and not only rely on investigations done by regional commands on their own men.
4. The government should ensure the safety and well being of internally displaced persons, in accordance with
international law and standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.
*In particular it must ensure that the lives of displaced persons are not at risk of direct or indiscriminate attacks or
other acts of violence.
*It must provide or ensure the provision of, as a minimum, adequate food and potable water; adequate shelter and
housing; appropriate clothing; and essential medical services and sanitation.
*It must grant unimpeded access to all areas under its control to humanitarian actors so that they may reach
internally displaced persons and other civilians at risk without further delay.
*It must, in cooperation with the displaced persons, implement a sustainable and comprehensive plan of action
for their safe and voluntary return to their villages, in conditions that allow returnees to live without threats to their
security and under economic, social and political conditions compatible with human dignity. This includes provisions
for adequate food, housing and livelihood upon resettlement, as recommended by the DOH-UNICEF-UNWFP in their
joint nutrition and food security assessment of the internally displaced persons.
*It should ensure that their property and other rights are fully restored, and in the case of destroyed or
inaccessible property, that they receive adequate compensation, irrespective of their return to their place of permanent
residence.
5. The Philippine government must take responsibility for the security of all civilians residing in areas affected by the
conflict regardless of their religion, political affiliation, or ethnicity. Specifically, it must take concrete steps to
protect Philippine Muslims, otherwise known as Moros, from reprisal attacks and other violations, particularly by
members of the government security forces.
6. The Philippine government should prioritise the establishment of an office of its national human rights institution
in ARMM, starting with the issuance of an executive or administrative order which permits this. The Commission on
Human Rights of the Philippines should then re-establish office/s within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,
to make the agency accessible to victims of human rights abuses. The ARMM regional government must fully
cooperate to support this effort.
7. The national government, particularly through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, in
consultation with ARMM regional officials and civil society, should establish a culturally accepted mechanism of
monitoring, investigating and bringing a just end to abuses perpetrated by privately armed militias, feuding clans and
other armed groups in their practice of rido, to facilitate governance that is based on the rule of law in the conflictaffected region and to prevent localised clashes that could escalate into heavy fighting.
8. The Philippine senate, as a matter of priority, must ensure that the Anti-Torture Bill and the Anti-Involuntary
Disappearance Bill fully accord with international human rights law, in particular the International Convention on the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the Convention against Torture, and expedite the approval
of the proposed legislations before the end of the next session.
9. As a matter of priority, the Philippine state should ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and to make the declarations required under Articles 31 and 32 of the
Convention, thus recognizing the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to consider
communications from individuals and state parties.
10. The Philippine government should implement urgently the recommendations contained in the 2008 UN Special
Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions’ report and 2009 follow-up report on the Philippines
which remain unfulfilled.
11. The Philippine government should extend an open invitation to the UN Special Procedures to visit Central Mindanao, in particular the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering
terrorism and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, who have both requested to visit the
Philippines several times.

Recommendations to the MILF
1. The MILF should publicly declare a commitment to respecting the human rights of all peoples and immediately
order its fighters, followers and supporters to cease all acts that constitute to human rights abuses, particularly in the
context of the armed conflict.
2. The MILF must ensure that its fighters, followers and supporters adhere strictly to their obligations under
international humanitarian law by clarifying to its fighters, followers or supporters, irrespective of rank, that IHL
violations would not be tolerated, particularly attacks on civilians and civilian properties or objects, and indiscriminate attacks. Members suspected of committing violations must be removed from any positions where they may repeat them.
3. The MILF must cooperate with the Philippine government in facilitating joint investigations of allegations of grave
abuses and violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and bringing to justice perpetrators of such
abuses, in a civilian court, through proceedings that comply with international standards of fairness.
4. The MILF should divulge the results of its investigations of the attacks on civilians perpetrated by three of its
commanders in August 2008 and the punishments which it stated that it has imposed on those it found to be
responsible.

Recommendations to the International Community
Amnesty International calls on the international community to support measures for independent human rights
monitors to document reports of abuses by the parties to the conflict, with the aim of improving compliance with
international human rights law and humanitarian law in particular with regard to protection of civilians. Specifically:
1. Amnesty International calls on multilateral organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Conference and the
European Union, which have both expressed interest in supporting the peace process, to give assistance in
establishing international monitors of human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law committed
in the context of the armed conflict.
2. Amnesty International calls on the international donor community to support the expansion of independent local
human rights monitoring teams, in order to have more systematic and coordinated documentation and reporting of
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the conflict-affected areas.

21 August 2009

The Philippine military, through its attack dogs Pastor Alcover and Jovito Palparan, are trying to discredit the Commission on Human Rights and its chairperson, Leila de Lima. Human-rights groups are understandably concerned. “Now that the CHR chairperson insists on the mandate of the commission, they consider her as an enemy,” Marie Hilao-Enriquez of Karapatan said. “That is the most dangerous mindset.”

MANILA – For years since it was established, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), a supposedly independent constitutional body whose head is appointed by the President, has struggled to gain some respect. Many had doubted its capacity to fulfill its mandate, even to be impartial.

As its leaders would readily admit, the CHR had been a toothless tiger – a perception made worse by the commission’s failure in the past to confront the government, particularly the Philippine military, for violations of human rights.

It came as a surprise to many, therefore, when the CHR began taking a more active role in recent years in investigating human-rights cases, particularly in the wake of the series of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture.

The case of Melissa Roxas — the Filipino-American activist who claimed to have been abducted and tortured by soldiers and who, after going home to the United States, had gone back to the Philippines to pursue her case against the military — illustrates best this change at the CHR. Roxas did all that under the protective custody of the CHR.

To many human-rights advocates, it did not come as a surprise as well that the CHR itself had become the subject of attack for doing its mandate. Nothing illustrated this best than the CHR hearing on Roxas’s case on July 29, when Rep. Pastor Alcover Jr. of the anti-communist group Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (Anad) asked CHR chairperson Leila de Lima if she was related to Juliet de Lima, the wife of Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Alcover apparently sought to discredit de Lima and the CHR investigation itself by trying to link de Lima to the communists. Earlier, Alcover alleged that Roxas was a communist guerrilla.

“I take offense in that kind of stance. What are you trying to insinuate?” de Lima told Alcover during the hearing. “Is this part of your psy-war? Are you questioning the credibility of the CHR chair?”

“Yes,” Alcover replied without hesitation.

Threatened

De Lima told Alcover and former Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. of the Bantay party list, who also attended the hearing, not to muddle the issue. Alcover and Palparan were summoned by the commission to testify and present the alleged video and photographs showing Roxas as a member of the New People’s Army (NPA). The NPA, led by the CPP, has been waging a people’s war for four decades.

Palparan also questioned de Lima’s statement saying that Roxas’s affiliation is irrelevant to the ongoing investigation of the CHR. He said further that Roxas’s testimony is a mere propaganda against the military and the government. Palparan has been called “The Butcher” by human-rights advocates for the trail of blood he left behind in places where he had been assigned. Alcover is a self-proclaimed anti-communist crusader.

In a statement to the media the next day, de Lima confirmed that Juliet de Lima is a distant relative. “I neither denied nor concealed that. Why are the two gentlemen making a fuss about that?” she said.

“Why are they so threatened by Roxas’s case that they are on full offensive?” de Lima said. “It seems that their personal crusade is to block an inquiry whose goal is to search for truth. Why are they so frightened of such scrutiny? No one is respondent yet because no one has been identified so far. Does anyone feel alluded to for past acts?”

When asked to comment, CHR commissioner Jose Manuel Mamauag told Bulatlat that it’s a peripheral issue. “Their [Alcover and Palparan] mere presence is already an answer to their question on the credibility of the CHR.”

“Regardless of political color, we stick to the main issue of allegation of abduction and torture [of Roxas],” Mamauag said.

“This is the first time they [Palparan and Alcover] encountered a CHR chair who insists on the independence of the commission, who takes her job seriously and who can be depended on by human rights victims. They are threatened by this fact,” Karapatan secretary general Marie Hilao-Enriquez said in an interview with Bulatlat.

Enriquez said Palparan and Alcover aim to destroy the credibility of the CHR as an institution. “For them, there is no place for dissenting opinion,” she said.

“The fact that Palparan and Alcover are now speaking against Roxas’s testimony bolsters our belief that the military is behind her abduction and torture,” Enriquez said.

Visit to Fort Magsaysay

A second visit to Fort Magsaysay, the camp of the Philippine Army’s 7th Infantry Division, to ascertain the allegations of Roxas earned for de Lima and the CHR yet another barrage of attacks.

In the early morning of July 30, the CHR team, led by de Lima, visited Fort Magsaysay, this time with Roxas. In her affidavit, Roxas’s description of the place of her detention bears similarities with Fort Magsaysay,

Enriquez, who went with the team, said there were obvious renovations on the compound they inspected. “There is a new wall, a new gazebo. The pathway has been changed. The jail cell identified by Melissa is now a storage room.”

But the compound was indeed near a firing range and an airstrip, said Enriquez, referring to Roxas’s assertion. When they went inside one of the comfort rooms, Enriquez said, Roxas was trembling and told her: “This is where they gave me a bath.”

A day after the said visit, Maj. Gen. Ralph Villanueva, commander of the 7th Infantry Division, described the CHR visit as “cunning and deceiving.”

In a report he submitted to Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Victor Ibrado, Villanueva said the CHR used the visit to Fort Magsaysay to look into cases of missing activists apart from Roxas’s case. He said the visit could just be a “fishing expedition” to implicate members of the military in the cases of missing activists.

In his report to Ibrado, Villanueva accused de Lima of “showing obvious bias by not being frank and forthright in her dealings” with the 7th Infantry Division. He even said he was not initially aware that Raymond Manalo http://www.bulatlat.com/main/tag/raymond-manalo/ , a torture survivor, was with de Lima during the visit.

In a letter to Ibrado dated August 1, de Lima said Villanueva’s statements are “unacceptable and uncalled for.” “The assertions made by Maj. Gen. Villanueva are untrue and deplorable. We cannot allow the commission’s credibility and independence to be undermined capriciously and without basis,” de Lima said in her four-page letter to Ibrado.

“As a human-rights institution, we respect Maj. Gen. Villanueva’s right to freedom of expression and opinion. However, we draw the line at false accusations and baseless innuendos,” de Lima added.

As to Villanueva’s misgivings about the inclusion of Manalo in the visiting team, de Lima asserted that the CHR has the prerogative to determine who shall allow to take part in its inspections.

Article XIII, Section 18 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution http://www.chanrobles.com/article13humanrights.htm lays down the CHR’s powers and functions including, among others, to investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights; to exercise visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities; and to monitor the Philippine Government’s compliance with international treaty on human rights.

“The Constitution grants the commission broad powers of investigation and visitation. And it has been our firm and consistent position that CHR does not need prior clearance from any authority to fulfill its investigative and visitorial mandate,” de Lima said.

Karapatan’s Enriquez believes that what the CHR is doing is a boost to human rights in the Philippines. She, however, bewailed the attempts by the military to discredit the commission. “Now that the CHR chairperson insists on the mandate of the commission, they consider her as an enemy,” Enriquez said. “That is the most dangerous mindset. Their bigotry kills.” (Bulatlat.com)

18 August 2009

A BICAMERAL body yesterday endorsed for ratification a bill that seeks to penalize torture, and in the process strengthening the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to curb such practices.

Police officers attend a bicameral meeting on the Anti-Torture Bill at the Senate in Pasay City . The bill was approved yesterday for ratification in both Houses of Congress. — Photo By Jonathan L. Cellona “The respective House and Senate panels have agreed to a reconciled version of the Anti-Torture Bill,” Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero, chairman of the committee on justice and human rights, told reporters after the meeting..

He added the bill is expected to be ratified next week.

Aside from increasing the CHR’s budget, Mr. Escudero said the reconciled version also penalizes the superiors of state agents who commit torture as well as those caught maintaining “secret detention places” of torture.

The bill outlines penalties ranging from a minimum of six months to a maximum of 12 years depending on the gravity of the offense. Coverage extends to physical, mental, psychological, and drug abuse.

Mr. Escudero said “this bill will discourage those who are planning to commit acts of torture,” pointing to the slew of preventive and punishment provisions.

“We have agreed to increase the funding allotted to the [CHR] next year so they could better perform their duties in enforcing anti-torture laws.”

The P5-million additional outlay, Mr. Escudero said, would be included in discussions on the 2010 budget.

Aside from increased funding for the CHR, the approval bill also seeks encourage the police and military to monitor their ranks against abuses.

“Part of the bill discusses command responsibility wherein even if you did not commit the torture act, but you were the superior officer of an agent who committed one, then you also have a liability, although [to a lesser extent],” Mr. Escudero said.

Allegations

The Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police have suffered from allegations of turning a blind eye on human rights concerns, including alleged torture perpetrated against civilians and rebels.

One recent case is the allegation of Filipino-American activist Melissa C. Roxas that she was abducted in Tarlac province north of Metro Manila last May and was subjected to torture. The CHR has an ongoing investigation on the matter.

But apart from state agents, private individuals will also be covered by the bill, Mr. Escudero said. “We have agreed on the fact that when torture is performed by a private individual, the penalty applicable under the revised penal code will be the highest.”

“Another new provision under this bill is the illegality of maintaining of so-called ’secret detention places.’ These are different from safe houses for witnesses under the witness protection program.”

All government agencies will be required to pass a list of designated detention centers to CHR, said Mr. Escudero, including a monthly update on the creation of new facilities. — Michael Paolo T. Jamias
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AHRC-STM-172-2009

18 August 2009

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PHILIPPINES: Torture law nearing approval is an obligation long overdue

While the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) welcomes the development that the proposed law on torture is nearing its approval following the bicameral session of the Senate and the House of Representatives it must also be said that they, the lawmakers, have for over two decades frustrated numerous torture victims in their attempts to obtain legal redress by delaying it.

Under the Philippine’s legislative system, before a final draft of the law is approved, a bicameral session is held between the two chambers as each of them would always have their own version of any proposed law. This stage is already done and the local NGOs described the final version as “robust in substance”. Both chambers, however, would have to ratify the final version, which they have yet to do, before it is submitted to the President for her signature.

Therefore, unless the two chambers themselves deliberately delay and fail to ratify the final version; or, the President, for some reason, exercises her power of veto, it is likely that the law on torture will be enacted. However, there is no escaping the failure of the country’s lawmakers over a period of two decades to ratify this law despite the fact that freedom from torture itself is a Constitutional right. This is something they should have done a long time ago. To have this law passed deserves recognition, but its delay must also be mourned.

The Filipino people have meagre reason to be elated by this development. In fact, the lawmakers could also be held at fault for the incarceration of the hundreds, if not thousands of torture victims who had been deprived of remedies. They are persons who have been convicted or held for trial over charges taken by way of torture all over their country during the past two decades. Some of them, like the Abadilla Five have since been fighting for their innocence for an exceptional 13 years.

It is these lawmakers, many of whom are detached from absorbing the real needs of their constituents that should realise that it is they who owe a lot to their constituents and not the other way around. Why, therefore, should they be thanked now for something that they should have done years ago? Should this law finally be passed it is something that is expected from them. Rather than expect praise they should be explaining to the people they supposedly represent why it has taken them so long.

Unfortunately the enactment of a law does not guarantee the end of the police and the military’s practice of torture in investigating cases. The Philippines has had the reputation of ratifying international human rights instruments, enacting good domestic laws, but are largely poor in implementing them which often results in the dissatisfaction of the victims. Any law would only have meaning if victims have confidence, after being satisfied of the legal proceedings in seeking remedies they sought, that it would produce something satisfactory. It is this that the meaning of any law is built upon. But even the government’s system of criminal justice has yet to build on this very notion.

Take the example of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), a law mandating the distribution of farm land to landless tenants. This law has not satisfied the beneficiaries. Farmers seeking ownership to lands are killed. The landed elite, some of whom are sitting in Congress as lawmakers, have been able to frustrate the implementation of the land reform law ensuring that huge tracts of farm lands remain the property of wealthy landlords.

Therefore, the Filipino people will just have to wait and see whether or not the implementation of this domestic law on torture, once enacted, would effectively address the problem of impunity and the lack of remedies for torture victims. Although this is remarkable, as it now legally binds the State to protecting this right, it is also premature to presume that this piece of legislation would eradicate the endemic and systematic practice of torture, which is perceived as an indispensable means to investigate cases. # # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

—————————–

Asian Human Rights Commission
19/F, Go-Up Commercial Building,
998 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) – 2698-6339 Fax: +(852) – 2698-6367

By CARLOS H. CONDE, The New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/world/asia/13iht-phils.html

13 August 2009

MANILA — Melissa Roxas, a 31-year-old artist and writer from Los Angeles, traveled to the Philippines in 2007 to learn more about the country of her birth.

Ms. Roxas moved to the United States when she was 9 years old, and finding out more about the Philippines had been an obsession for her. “I came to the Philippines to learn more about my roots and heritage,” she told the human rights committee of the Philippine Congress last month.

Soon after arriving, she embarked on an “immersion program” with a left-leaning nongovernmental organization, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance), which sent her to impoverished communities in the provinces north of Manila to work on health and sanitation programs. One afternoon in late May, while watching television in a farmer’s home in a village in Tarlac Province, Ms. Roxas and two of her companions were abducted by armed and hooded men who dragged them into a van without a license plate.

For six days, Ms. Roxas says, she was interrogated, drugged, tortured and smothered to near death, with her interrogators trying to force her to admit she was a communist guerrilla. When the interrogators learned that she was an American citizen, she told the committee, the torture lessened. Although she continued to be tortured, her citizenship may have saved Ms. Roxas from death. Her captors later dropped her off at a relative’s house in the capital.

Ms. Roxas’s case was unusual in that she was among the few people who have been freed after being abducted and tortured. It also became highly publicized after it emerged that Ms. Roxas was a U.S. citizen and her lawyers said she would file a suit against the Philippine government in a U.S. court for unlawful kidnapping and assault.

But her case also highlighted something that international and local human rights groups say is all too common in the Philippines: violations of human rights by the military in the name of battling a communist insurgency.

Allegations of human rights violations have hounded the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ever since she came to power in 2001.

According to Karapatan, the largest human rights group in the Philippines, more than 1,000 activists, peasants and civilians have died and thousands more have been tortured or abducted since 2001. Those allegations have been echoed by groups like Human Rights Watch, based in New York, which has accused the government of being engaged in a “dirty war” against leftists.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, among other institutions, investigated several of the cases and found the Philippine military primarily responsible for the actions, attributing them to a counterinsurgency policy called Oplan Bantay Laya, or Operation Freedom Watch, that does not distinguish armed communist combatants from activists who are out in the open.

The United Nations says there has been an improvement in recent years — with a 70 percent decline in the number of killings since February 2007 —partly the result of human rights groups publicizing the problem. But in the first half of this year, 36 activists were killed, according to the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project, a program of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

The military has disputed Ms. Roxas’s account, saying that she fabricated the story of her abduction, despite initial findings by the Commission on Human Rights, an independent constitutional body, that her account was credible. Later, the military went on a counteroffensive, accusing Ms. Roxas of being a member of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been waging a 40-year Maoist insurgency, the longest in Asia. Ms. Roxas has denied being a member of the group.

Leila de Lima, the chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights, said at a hearing on the case that “freedom from torture is a nonderogable right” —that even if Ms. Roxas were a communist guerrilla, she should not have been tortured. “Even prisoners of war should not be tortured,” Ms. de Lima said.

Apart from the torture and killing linked to the communist insurgency, the Philippines has also come under fire for other human rights violations.

In May, the United Nations Committee Against Torture said that it was “deeply concerned about the numerous, ongoing, credible and consistent allegations, corroborated by a number of Filipino and international sources, of routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody.” The Philippine government told the U.N. committee that “torture or ill-treatment on suspects or detainees is not tolerated or condoned by the Philippine National Police.”

At the same time, the military and its backers have intensified a campaign against groups that the military says are sympathetic to the communists.

Jovito Palparan, a former general who is now a congressman, accused the Commission on Human Rights —whose chairman is appointed by the president and which has been accused by human rights groups in the past of not having been active enough in investigating violations —of backing the leftists.

In remote villages and in the slums of Manila, the military has embarked on a campaign to discredit leftist groups, often gathering residents in communities for viewings of videos where the groups are depicted as communists. The military has also gone into schools to warn students about radical groups out to recruit for the Communist Party.

Lt. Col. Danilo Lucero, the chief of the army’s Civil Military Operations, said in an interview that the military was concentrating on groups that it believed supported the armed New People’s Army.

“They have perfected the art of deception,” Colonel Lucero said. “They have their own political group that basically connects with their armed group.”

But Marie Hilao-Enriquez, secretary general of Karapatan, said the counterinsurgency strategy was “disastrous for human rights.”

“What the military does —labeling every dissenter as a communist —is dangerous,” Ms. Enriquez said. “They are in effect justifying the harassment, torture, abduction and even murder of Filipinos whose only crime was to speak out against the problems of society.